Colors
by ChibiDawn23
Summary: MARY POPPINS RETURNS. What led Jack to pick a pink balloon for Jane at the Spring Fair? Jack/Jane. Oneshot. Part of my "Chimpanzooniverse" although it's not necessary to read any of those first.


**Disclaimer:**** I don't own the characters; they belong to PL Travers and Disney.**

**Author's**** Note: Had to side with my girl Jane in the movie when Jack said pink looked like her, because she wears pink like one time, and it's at the end. So how _did_ Jack make the connection between her and pink? This story takes place somewhere in my universe between the end of the movie and the start of "The Chimpanzoo." Any Spanish and all definitions of colors and flowers comes courtesy of Google.**

* * *

She tended to wear a lot of green. But Jack associated Jane Banks more with the color pink. It had been an easy decision, that day at the Spring Fair, when he'd shuffled up to the Balloon Lady and Miss Jane Banks and plucked a pink balloon from the bundle. "This one looks like you," he'd told Jane with a shy smile.

Jane's cheeks had turned pink even as she smiled at him. "How do you know?" she questioned.

* * *

Among the plethora of things that Bert taught him growing up- how to ride a bike, how to draw, to light a lamp and clean a flue, one of the things they'd talked about were colors ("Colores," Jack had taught Bert) and their meanings. They'd spent almost an entire morning when Jack was about ten or eleven standing in front of the flower seller one spring talking about the different colors of the flowers (and what flowers meant and that was a whole _other_ conversation, there'd been a reason he'd picked a yellow tulip for his and Jane's first date-cheerful thoughts and sunshine). Apart from just making the world more beautiful, colors had meaning, Bert had told him. They could mean good things or bad things, but Jack always chose to look at the good things.

Jack had saved most of a month's salary to buy a red waistcoat when he became a leerie because red stood for determination, something Bert had seen in him—a scared seven-year-old determined to survive on his own. And a black hat, because black meant strength and Papi had always stressed being strong and brave- _fuerte y valiente_\- before he'd died.

(Red also meant strength and power, and he often wondered if Mary Poppins had worn that red hat for that reason, with her magic. And blue meant wisdom and trust…colors that suited her very much.)

The day Jack had run into Jane Banks again, Jane had been wearing bright green gloves, and Jack knew green meant growth and energy and freshness. It had certainly been refreshing to run into her again, and to see her passion for SPRUCE firsthand. The morning had been gray and dreary, like most mornings in London since the Slump, but seeing her had been like the sun coming through the clouds. Like the pinpricks of light that he'd played and danced in with Mary Poppins when Bert had been sick. Jane was just….bright, and shiny, and beautiful.

But Jack had noticed the pink in her cheeks above everything else. Pink meant approachability. It'd been so easy to talk to her that day on the street, to admit to her he used to wave to her in the window, to tell her how much it meant that she was working for SPRUCE. He wondered later if maybe he'd embarrassed her, going on like that, and that's where the pink had come from. He wasn't sorry about it, though.

Pink meant friendship. Though really, he'd only known her for a week (his nine-year-old self waving to her in a window didn't count, not in his mind), Jack felt like he'd known Jane forever. He felt comfortable enough to offer her a ride on his bicycle to her rally. Bert had told him once that friends would do anything for each other.

Jack had scaled Big Ben for Jane-and he would have climbed higher if the situation had called for it.

Pink meant affection. Jack adored Jane's family—Michael, Annabel, John, and Georgie. Loved spending time with them on adventures with Mary Poppins. There was definitely _affection_ there, for everyone involved…but especially for the little girl he'd first seen in a second floor window with a paisley dress and bright yellow curls, who had grown into a beautiful, capable, strong woman who preferred a green beret and trousers. Who fought for a fair shake for others who hadn't grown up with money, who had worked in a factory during the Great War just to do her part. Jane was smart, and funny, and beautiful, and compassionate and...maybe _affection_ wasn't the right word, but it was awfully appropriate for the moment.

* * *

But all this was simply too much to explain to answer her question that day at the Spring Fair, so he'd just offered her the balloon, and immediately followed her into the lovely London sky with a blue one of his own. When the Admiral had ordered him, "Don't you lose her, sir!" Jack had been completely serious in answering, "I won't sir!"

Blue meant loyalty.


End file.
